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Savings bank customers may soon get another channel for online on-boarding to the Atal Pension Yojana (APY) — a government-backed pension scheme targeted at the unorganised sector — without having to use Net banking or a mobile App.
Pension regulator PFRDA has now allowed APY-Points of Presence (PoPs) to introduce an alternate channel for online on-boarding of their existing Savings account of customers through the bank’s own web portal.
Currently, some banks are providing online APY account opening through Net Banking or mobile app. However, a large number of bank customers who are eligible are not using either of the facilities. In such cases, these bank customers are not able to open an APY account through online/digital mode.
To solve this issue, PFRDA has enabled the facility of ‘Online Paperless On-boarding of Subscribers using the Web Portal’, sources said.
Increasing customer base
This new facility is expected to help PFRDA realise its aim of having an overall APY subscriber base of 30 million by March 2021. It may be recalled that as many 3 million new APY subscribers were added during the Covid-19 pandemic so far this fiscal. Recently, PFRDA’s Chairman, Supratim Bandyopadhyay, said that banks are playing a crucial role in expanding the APY subscriber base.
Under the newly-introduced arrangement, bank customers will visit the Bank’s portal providing APY on boarding facility and initiate the registration process by providing the customer ID/Savings Bank Account Number/ PAN ( any two) or using Aadhaar number.
Banks would have the option either to develop both modes or any one mode of initiation of on-boarding process. OTP-based authentication is envisaged in both modes. On completion of this step, access to the web form shall be provided. Consent for Standing Instruction and APY Enrolment Form submission to the bank may be done through OTP authentication or with web sign-in.
In case the subscriber is not able to sign in or provide an OTP, they can wet sign the form subsequently and submit the same to his bank branch, the PFRDA said.
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